The misunderstanding surrounding Docker doesn't seem to be getting any better. Docker isn't actually a containerisation engine, it's simply an orchestration la

The misunderstanding surrounding Docker doesn't seem to be getting any better. Docker isn't actually a containerisation engine, it's simply an orchestration layer for Linux kernel components that implement the containerisation. You shouldn't be comparing something that attempts to implement containerisation itself and something that simply calls OS APIs to do said containerisation. In terms of cross version compatibility I don't think Microsoft intends to fix this. There isn't really any reason to. They could extend the SxS system to support multiple versions of core DLLs in different namespaces but I doubt that will actually happen. The reason I doubt it will happen is that the hype around containers has nothing to do with lift and shift of legacy applications, but rather what new applications and platforms are possible with more efficient isolation and portability of runtime + application. I would expect their efforts to be directed towards .NET, making it easy to package and application, the Global Assembly Cache and any native libraries it needs. Sure you could run any arbitrary application and there would but support for that but it's clear where their priorities lie. PS: It's worth mentioning that Windows already has network namepaces support. It was implemented to support the virtual network gateways for VMM's NVGRE. I think it's safe to assume they will go the Linux route and implement separate support for process, permissions and filesystem namespacing too. The real show will be wether filesystem namespacing is done at VFS layer of if they implement it directly in NTFS or ReFS.